Monthly Archives: February 2015

The Season, launched at the United Nations in 1998, marks the annual 64 calendar days between the memorial anniversary of the assassination of Mohandas K. Gandhi on January 30 and that of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. on April 4. The Season teaches that every person can move the world forward in the direction of peace through daily nonviolent choices, words and actions.

Re-printed from 64days.org

WEEK 5 (29-35)
In order to create a peaceful world, we must learn to practice nonviolence with one another in our day-to-day interactions.

Day 29 – FORGIVENESS (Feb. 27)

When we forgive, we are free to let go of the past and move on with our lives. We do not condone the hurtful behavior but we realize that there is something within us that is more powerful and important than this wounding experience. Today, write a letter to forgive someone. You do not have to mail it.

Day 30 – AMENDS (Feb. 28)

Make amends today. Apologize to someone you may have hurt and mean your apology sincerely.

Day 31 – PRAISING (March 1)

Appreciation helps people to grow and lets them know that they matter. Offer praise to at least three people today for their personal qualities, achievements, or helpful service.

Day 32 – PATIENCE (March 2)

According to Cesar Chavez, “Nonviolence is not inaction…It is hard work…It is the patience to win.” When your plans seem delayed, choose to be patient by identifying at least three ways that you can constructively use this time to support your goal.

Day 33 – ACKNOWLEDGEMENT (March 3)

Tell someone today what a difference he or she has made in your life. Acknowledge that person for being there for you. Make this a day when you don’t take people for granted.

Day 34 – LOVE (March 4)

Gandhi wrote, “Nonviolence is based on the assumption that human nature…. unfailingly responds to the advances of love.” Today, focus on what you appreciate most about the person you like the least.

Day 35 – UNDERSTANDING (March 5)

Thich Nhat Hanh says, “When you understand, you cannot help but love…Practice looking at all living beings with the eyes of compassion.” Send a silent thought of love to ten people today. Share your experience with someone.

“Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you. Do not quench the Spirit.” (1 Thessalonians 5: 16-19)

This passage of scripture is a favorite of mine. I especially like the part about not quenching the Spirit. This makes me remember how easy it is for us to cut off the flow of God working in our lives. When we begin to get negative about things, or other people, when we begin to look for fault instead of looking for the blessings, it is so easy to quench the love of God showing up in our lives. Praying without ceasing can be as simple as just knowing and affirming that God is right where we are at every moment, meeting whatever need we may have. I think praying without ceasing in this way is the surest way we have to experiencing that abundant life we all desire to lead.

Think about this: think about a time when you have needed to take some medication and as that medication begins to work you feel better, more healthy and focused in life. Suddenly, because you feel better, you stop taking that medication. You stop because of the false belief that because you feel better you no longer need it, forgetting of course that the reason you feel better is because you are taking your dosage each day. This happens in our spiritual life as well. We come to church, we pray, we connect with God and God’s unconditional love, allowing God’s Spirit to move throughout our day to day life, and things begin to turn around for us, our lives begin to look pretty good. But then we stop that God/Spirit connection thinking we no longer need to turn to God, that everything is now all right. Well, guess what? The reason things are looking so wonderful is that God is a major part of our focus.

I notice this especially in church attendance. In times of crisis the sanctuary is bursting at the seams as people reach out to Spirit God for comfort. Not a complaint, for we are delighted that people know there is a place to come and find peace. But, for many people, if things are going along well church becomes at the very bottom of their priority list. Too bad, for a continual affirmation and worship of the Divine Presence, Spirit-God, builds for us a wonderful Spiritual Escrow Account of Faith.

So, as our scripture tells us, do not quench the Spirit from moving throughout your daily experience, but always give thanksgiving to God for all that God is doing in your life.

God is willing and anxious to bless us, but we must do our part and receive the gift.

Affirmation: “I allow God to be God in my life today. Thank you God for your many blessings.”

We live our lives one thought at a time. Let each of those thoughts really count for something wonderful.

Be prepared to change your thinking and change your life. Please join us each Sunday at 5:30 PM in our Social Hall at First Christian Church, North Hollywood, CA for our Contemporary Celebration and Praise service. Come as you are and enjoy an hour of great music from our wonderful band and singers, inspiring messages and good fellowship. Those things in life that you have been seeking have also been seeking you. Now is a good time to receive them. We will lift one another to live exciting, abundant new lives of possibility and purpose.

Also, join me on Wednesday evenings from 7 to 8 PM for an hour of guided and silent meditation, reflection, affirmation and prayer. As always, we will share communion together. Everyone is welcome. We are an open and affirming congregation.

Do you ever feel as though on your walk through life that you are taking two steps forward, one step back? Or even on some occasions, one step forward and two steps back? Life often seems so random as we strive to move to the next positive thing we wish to experience. We can easily get discouraged and give up. The gospel writer Mark quotes Jesus as saying, “Do not fear, only believe.”

Okay, I know you are thinking, well that’s not always easily said in the midst of our “stuff.” And that is true. Those two steps back and one step forward times can be pretty discouraging. However, what I have come to believe is that even when life seems to be taking one or two steps backward, and we seem to be loosing ground, is that God is still a God who is right where we are. These are times when some inner reflection and self-examination can be helpful as we seek to take that next step forward. Maybe we can use this time to decide what our next decision should be, or just to say to God, “Okay, I know you are here with me, so you tell me what to do next.” You want to know something? God will let you know. It could be that you are not ready for the next forward step, or maybe the direction of that next step needs to be reconsidered. Or maybe you need to catch your breath, or “catch your faith.” What we can know is that we need never fear for God is walking with us, directing us.

In my life I have had times when I felt as though I was at a stalemate. What I thought was the direction I was to take was just not working out. Maybe it even did for a while and I thought I should continue to pursue that direction, but something had changed. In order to experience the next thing in my life I needed to do some deep reflection as to what my next step should be. I had been working in the entertainment industry for a long time and suddenly, not only were things slowing down for me, but the joy had gone out of my even working in that area. I had thought to myself, “I can’t continue like this for the rest of my life, there must be something else I am meant to do.” During my reflection time it became clear to me that I always thought I would like to go into the ministry. From an early age I thought that, but early on my desire to work in entertainment seemed to be moving forward, so that is what I did. And besides, at that time I thought I could never measure up to the examples of minister’s I had in my childhood. Now, suddenly as my life was shifting, I thought again about ministry. Now the challenge was how to pay for seminary. As I trusted God I prepared for a new and exciting change. Soon, all the details of seminary began to come together in a miraculous way. I was led to the San Francisco Theological Seminary, the perfect school for me, and scholarships and grants appeared which would allow me to graduate without any debt. What had at first seemed as steps being taken backward was in reality all preparation for moving into something I truly love, enjoy and find thrilling.

“Do not fear, only believe.” Keep your gaze on what you truly wish to experience, a life a fulfillment, joy and happiness, knowing that God will get you there even when your steps seem to take a different direction than you expected.

Affirmation: “Healing light moves through me and out into the world today to anoint each new step I take.”

We live our lives one thought at a time. Let each of those thoughts really count for something wonderful.

Be prepared to change your thinking and change your life. Please join us each Sunday at 5:30 PM in our Social Hall at First Christian Church, North Hollywood, CA for our Contemporary Celebration and Praise service. Come as you are and enjoy an hour of great music from our wonderful band and singers, inspiring messages and good fellowship. Those things in life that you have been seeking have also been seeking you. Now is a good time to receive them. We will lift one another to live exciting, abundant new lives of possibility and purpose.

Also, join me on Wednesday evenings from 7 to 8 PM for an hour of guided and silent meditation, reflection, affirmation and prayer. As always, we will share communion together. Everyone is welcome. We are an open and affirming congregation.

The Season, launched at the United Nations in 1998, marks the annual 64 calendar days between the memorial anniversary of the assassination of Mohandas K. Gandhi on January 30 and that of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. on April 4. The Season teaches that every person can move the world forward in the direction of peace through daily nonviolent choices, words and actions.

Re-printed from 64days.org

WEEK 4 (22-28)
“The nonviolent approach does not immediately change the heart of the oppressor. It first does something to the hearts and souls of those committed to it. It gives them new self-respect; it calls up resources of strength and courage they did not know they had.” — Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Day 22 – MISSION (Feb. 20)

“My life is my message.” says Gandhi. Write down what you want to stand for in your life. Note at least one way you can show through action that you stand for your beliefs. Take this action today.

Day 23 – PRAYER (Feb. 21)

“Prayer from the heart can achieve what nothing else in the world can.” said Gandhi. Begin and end the day with a prayer for peace. Let peace begin with you.

Day 24 – HARMONY (Feb. 22)

Choosing not to engage in any form of gossip today contributes to harmony and peace in relationships. Today, choose to see the good in others rather than finding fault.

Day 25 – FRIENDLINESS (Feb. 23)

To humorist Will Rogers, strangers were simply friends he hadn’t met. View those you encounter today in that light. Make a new acquaintance.

Day 26 – RESPECT (Feb. 24)

Gandhi taught, “Language is an exact reflection of the character and growth of its speakers.” Today, respect yourself and others be choosing not to use any profanity or “put downs.”

Day 27 – GENEROSITY (Feb. 25)

Mother Theresa said, “There is a hidden poverty more pervasive than lack of money. It is the poverty of the heart.” Find three ways to generously give of your time, attention and resources to others.

Day 28 – LISTENING (Feb. 26)

Today, stop what you are doing and take five minutes to listen to the feelings behind someone’s words to you. Be fully present for the conversation and interested in what the person is saying.

Jesus is asking us to walk with him. Jesus understands what this journey to Jerusalem is all about and he is preparing those who travel with him for what is to occur after we reach our destination. We don’t always understand the full meaning of what awaits us, and Jesus is fully aware of this, for he knows we travel in faith and in trust. He loves all who travel with him and he provides all that we need with understanding and grace. To do this he is asking everyone to not take their eyes off of him. Do not take your eyes off Jesus. Keep your eyes, your gaze on him. We can’t afford to remove them for a moment. Keeping our eyes on Jesus is what will make all the difference for us as we move closer to the cross and through this season of Lent.

We must begin by asking ourselves a very important question. Are we willing to walk this journey that Jesus is walking? Will be dare to be brave enough, have faith enough, have trust and conviction enough to walk with Jesus along this path to the cross?

The scripture, Matthew 6: 1-6, 16-21, at first I thought was odd for Ash Wednesday. It is out of the Revised Common lectionary specifically for today and I had to sit with it for awhile to understand how it speaks to us as we begin with Jesus this liberating journey with him to the cross.

And then as I continued to sit with it and meditate upon it, it all began to make sense. Jesus is giving us instructions for our behavior and for our thinking as we start out tonight to walk with him.

Jesus is asking us to dwell on those spiritual things that have real meaning and that have true purpose for our walk. Earthly things can be too weighty and they can just slow us down and burden us. Those things we may think we need for the journey are not necessarily the things that are truly important. Human things may serve us well in our earthly lives and define our humanity, but all too often they can become an encumbrance to our understanding of who we are a spiritual beings.

The human things that often prevent us from experiencing fully all that we are as spiritual creations of a loving God Jesus has spelled out in our passage from the Sermon on the Mount. Don’t practice your piety, your faith, your mercy and compassion so that it would be on display for all to see in order to get the applause and approval of others. That is what others might do, but not true followers and students of Jesus who understand and desire so much more. Who desire to live from their spiritual center, not their human center.

Our relationship with God and our prayer time is too important to treat lightly and without deep inner reflection. No need to be like so many humans who need to put their prayer time on display with false prayers spoken -not to help lift up others with the truth of God – but so that those praying with loud and “notice me” voices, will seem more righteous than they really are.

Our prayer and meditation time is one of the most holy experiences we can have. It is meant to be personal, and it is meant to be joyful. No need to put on a face that makes us look burdened so that others will say we are devout.

And our treasures – those things we hold sacred and dear. These things Jesus reminds us are gifts from an unconditionally loving and merciful God. We are to store those in our hearts and in our praise to God with thanksgiving, not set out before the world as a display of our own false sense of our own grandeur. Let your spiritual self, that comes from God, be your guide, Jesus tells us, not your human self that comes from a place of ego and self-importance.

These are the first instructions of Jesus for how we are to begin our journey with him. Jesus understands our humanity for he himself came to walk a journey of life on this earth in human form, so he tells us lovingly, “keep your eyes on me, so that your journey is good and your way is clear.”

When we come from our spiritual center, when we allow that spirit that dwells within us to take over and be our guide, our polar star, amazing and miraculous things happen to and through us that seem out of the ordinary for humans, but completely in keeping with the fullness of Spirit.

I am reminded of the story of Jesus walking on the sea towards the disciples who had set off before him by boat. Jesus had remained behind on the seashore to pray and now he sets off to meet his disciples.

This from Matthew’s account: “And early in the morning Jesus came walking toward them on the sea. But when the disciples saw him walking on the sea, they were terrified, saying, “It is a ghost!” And they cried out in fear. But immediately Jesus spoke to them and said, “Take heart, it is I; do not be afraid.”

Peter answered him, “Lord, if it is you, command me to come to you on the water.” Jesus said, “Come.” So Peter got out of the boat, started walking on the water, and came toward Jesus. But when he noticed the strong wind, he became frightened, and beginning to sink, he cried out, “Lord, save me!” Jesus immediately reached out his hand and caught him, saying to him, “You of little faith, why did you doubt?”

Peter had taken his eyes off Jesus. We must not take our eyes off Jesus on your journey. For he will keep us safe.

In his humanity Jesus had to look about him at the state of the world, with its mistrust and its wars and its defeatist attitudes and he had to think: “life – the world – it doesn’t have to be like this. People can live a life of so much more.” Our life doesn’t have to be one of fear and doubt, war and defeat. A life, lived from ones spiritual center can always be so much more.

Do not take your eyes off Jesus on your walk.

Our relationship with Jesus is one of experience. We pray, we listen and then we walk together with him to experience life and experience God in, through and as our life. Jesus says walk with me to know me and that I can know you. He longs to show us how life can truly be, but we must reach out and grab it with our faith and our trust and our belief in possibility. First through our decision to take this journey, and then through our faithful experience of each and every moment walking with him. Sometimes life is a struggle and our fears can start to overwhelm us, as they did Peter on the water, but that doesn’t mean we stop walking with Jesus, stop where we are, and stay in that one place. We keep moving forward, together.

Jesus looks at life lived today and says, “It doesn’t have to be like this.”

He beckons us forward, through all that we experience. Keep your eyes on Jesus.

We forge ahead, and soldier on, because Jesus has assured us that through it all, with our eyes on him, new life, new hope, and new possibility is our spiritual truth.

We are always making choices and we choose to walk together with Jesus, so that when we stumble we have the assurance that we are picked up, set back on course, and told everything is going to be all right. We choose to be loving students of Jesus and we choose to be teachable. Our eyes remain on Jesus.

Don’t be like those who put on display those things that are for vain glory, but humbly fall on your knees and know that the living, breathing presence of God is dwelling within you. That is what will sustain you when the fears and doubts of modernity seek to overwhelm. Jesus could continue to walk with eyes on the cross because he knew that those things of this world do not have the final word. They are not the final say. They are not the final chapter in a life lived with God. He could look with eyes toward the cross because he knew that the cross is not the end of the story. If anything, it is just the end of the prologue of life and that there is so much more to experience and live that pales in comparison with what has come before.

I love this quote by the Rev. Dr. Norman Vincent Peale: “Often we are faced with events that fill us with dismay. God loves us and wants to be near us in times of trouble and change. And Peale quotes Isaiah (63:9) assuring us, “In all their (human) distress God too was distressed, and the angel of his presence saved them. In his love and mercy he redeemed them; he lifted them up and carried them….” And then Peale quotes from Matthew, (11:28), Jesus inviting us into his loving care: “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.”

We will not experience anything that Jesus is not also experiencing. As we experience it we have the assurance of Christ’s healing power, love, compassion, strength and direct connection to God, our creator.

I remember during the Civil Right’s movement of the 1960s the slogan was “Keep your eyes on the prize.” Keep you eyes on where you want to be. Keep your eyes on what you truly wish to have be your experience. If you keep your eyes, your thoughts, your faith, on the victory, no matter how many battles you may think you lose along the way, you will ultimately be victorious.

Jesus is asking us to remember this and to trust him along our walk.

Why is this a journey to liberation? Because after the journey to the cross comes the journey that begins with resurrection. The slate is clear – the new morning bright with possibility because the journey was taken and our gaze was ever pointed heavenly.

Keep your eyes on Jesus as you walk this walk of Lent. Store up for yourselves treasures in heaven. Treasures in heaven where there is no pain, no sorrow and no defeat. Treasures in heaven where the human self is subservient to the spiritual self. Store up for yourself belief in a God who can never be defeated. Jesus asks us to trust him on this walk. If we can do that, what we will experience will change our life forever.

Our word for the week is COMPASSION. As I thought about this word this past week I wondered what we actually meant when we came up with this word last June in our worship planning meeting. Did we mean God’s compassion for us, or did we mean our compassion for others? What I finally decided was whatever we actually intended when we thought of the word that God’s compassion for us, our compassion for others, and even our compassion toward ourselves are all really the same. God is the common denominator here, God is the definition of compassion, so if we show compassion or receive compassion it has to contain all the elements of perfect Spirit.

For compassion to be truly experienced it must involve something that gives it action and moves it forward. That something I believe is FAITH.

We all live our lives in this modern world with varying degrees of fear. It would be difficult to not do so. Much of our world is scary and uncertain and much of our world is so unpredictable. Our lives are not always made up of eliminating fear entirely, but of learning to live with it so that we can exist the best that we can with productive, fruitful lives.

Degrees of fear may always be a part of our modern world and our human experience, but living a life that is not always coming from a place of fear, but a place of peace and compassion through the grace of God, can begin to change us and our world to a place we can really call home.

So, Compassion, lived through Faith, becomes the action that moves us forward to new understanding of God working in our lives. COMPASSION+FAITH=CHANGE. This becomes for us a Blended Wholeness and takes all of our experience, our thoughts and our beliefs, and brings them together so that our fears and doubts are diminished. If we think of fear and doubt as darkness, and compassion, faith and trust in God as light, the blending of our experience can begin to move us from one of despair to one of hope and peace.

Affirmation: “I flourish in the grace of God and experience a renewed belief that all is well.”

We live our lives one thought at a time. Let each of those thoughts really count for something wonderful.

Be prepared to change your thinking and change your life. Please join us each Sunday at 5:30 PM in our Social Hall at First Christian Church, North Hollywood, CA for our Contemporary Celebration and Praise service. Come as you are and enjoy an hour of great music from our wonderful band and singers, inspiring messages and good fellowship. Those things in life that you have been seeking have also been seeking you. Now is a good time to receive them. We will lift one another to live exciting, abundant new lives of possibility and purpose.

Also, join me on Wednesday evenings from 7 to 8 PM for an hour of guided and silent meditation, reflection, affirmation and prayer. As always, we will share communion together. Everyone is welcome. We are an open and affirming congregation.

The Season, launched at the United Nations in 1998, marks the annual 64 calendar days between the memorial anniversary of the assassination of Mohandas K. Gandhi on January 30 and that of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. on April 4. The Season teaches that every person can move the world forward in the direction of peace through daily nonviolent choices, words and actions.

Re-printed from 64days.org

WEEK 3 (15-21)
By practicing nonviolence with ourselves, we begin to see how it might apply toward others. Each personal practice can be turned into a practice toward another. Try it.

Day 15 – REVERENCE (Feb. 13)

Environmentalist John Muir said, “Everybody needs beauty as well as bread, places to play in and pray in, where Nature may heal and cheer and give strength to body and soul.” Today, go for a walk and realize the beauty around, above and below you.

Day 16 – GRATITUDE (Feb. 14)

On her show Oprah Winfrey frequently promotes the daily practice of gratitude. Begin the day by listing five things for which you are grateful and end it by sharing with one person all of the good in your life today.

Day 17 – INTEGRITY (Feb. 15)

Do the right thing. Spike Lee used these words as a title for one of his movies. When faced with a choice today, listen to your conscience. You know what’s right. Do it.

Day 18 – FREEDOM (Feb. 16)

Civil rights activist Diane Nash said, “Freedom, by definition, is people realizing that they are their own leaders.” Take a leadership role today in your own life. Find one way you can be more expressive of who you truly are.

When you judge yourself, you tend to believe that who you are is what you have or don’t have. Knowing that who you are is greater than all these things, today, forgive yourself for forgetting the good that is in you.

Day 21 – INSPIRATION (Feb. 19)

Think of at least two people who exemplify for you the practice of nonviolence. What is it you admire about them? Practice these behaviors today so that other people may be inspired.

When I was in high school I had a class period my senior year that I had to fill and so I thought it would be fun to take a shorthand and typing class. I loved learning shorthand and still use those skills today. My mother and I used to even correspond in shorthand when I was away at college and we would always, in any letter, shorthand or longhand, write, “I love you,” in shorthand at the end of letters and notes to one another.

Shorthand uses abbreviated symbols for the words and also leaves out many words that are just understood to be part of the sentence. So, in essence, it abbreviates much of what we would otherwise need to write out to complete a proper sentence.

As I apply this idea to our conversations with God I think many of our prayers we lift up are in shorthand. We often say to God, “I need this or that,” or we think, “God help me with this.” Now there is nothing wrong with that because I think anytime we turn to God in prayer and thought it is good. I also believe that God knows what we need long before we even utter the thought; but I also think it is good to set time aside to really sit and communicate in depth with God, to just talk and confide and dialogue with God as we would with another person. What I love about those times are the deep revelations of Spirit that come up during the prayer. This becomes true quality time spent with God and this quality time will not only help build our relationship with the Divine, but it will increase our faith and understanding of the grace that is poured out for us. I firmly believe that many, if not most, times the answers to my prayers are found in my prayer. While talking with God I suddenly find myself expressing the very thing that has alluded me. I find the ideas, the insight, the truth in my prayer as I am saying it, and what I just know is that the insight came from God and was sent through me to verbalize in order to understand it more fully. It also gives me a great opportunity to say “thank you, God, for your blessing.”

God understands our shorthand, but God also loves to hear our praise and thanksgiving in the fullness of our expression. Our prayer time is really one of the most important things we can do each day.

And at the end of each prayer, right before we say our “Amen,” we can also say to God, “I love you.” We all like to be told we are loved and I think God is no exception.

Affirmation: “Aware of the fullness of God right where I am I understand with greater clarity the magnitude of God working in my life. Thank you God for new insights and revelations of your presence. I love you.”

We live our lives one thought at a time. Let each of those thoughts really count for something wonderful.

Be prepared to change your thinking and change your life. Please join us each Sunday at 5:30 PM in our Social Hall at First Christian Church, North Hollywood, CA for our Contemporary Celebration and Praise service. Come as you are and enjoy an hour of great music from our wonderful band and singers, inspiring messages and good fellowship. Those things in life that you have been seeking have also been seeking you. Now is a good time to receive them. We will lift one another to live exciting, abundant new lives of possibility and purpose.

Also, join me on Wednesday evenings from 7 to 8 PM for an hour of guided and silent meditation, reflection, affirmation and prayer. As always, we will share communion together. Everyone is welcome. We are an open and affirming congregation.

At a friends church they say aloud the following affirmation right before their time of what they call “Affirmative Giving:” “From the love of pure spirit within me, I bless this gift. I send it forth to heal and bless and prosper. It is evidence of my faith and belief. It does good work in the world and returns to me abundantly.”

This is such a powerful statement about the intention we place forth in our giving. We send forth a portion of what we have received from God as a blessing to touch the lives of others in whatever way that blessing is needed. It may be to heal, or to prosper another in seeing new possibility in life. This mighty statement of Divine Circulation is after all what God is all about. This wonderful energy and vibration of an unconditionally loving God moves forth in a world that is fragmented and broken to heal and to mend those broken places so that new life may grow and create opportunity.

What our affirmative giving does is teach the world about the abundance of God available to them right where they are. It provides hope for those who have lost all hope, it provides guidance for those who feel lost and without a foundation to ground them in seeing beyond their current circumstances.

Why is it called “affirmative giving?” Because we are meant to give with a grateful and full heart in celebration of the many ways we have been blessed, sustained and enlightened. We give with the intention to see the seeds of Divine Spirit God grow and bloom and take our world from being one of fragmentation to one of a blended wholeness supported and undergirded by a God who knows only good.

Affirmation: “From the love of pure spirit within me, I send forth thoughts of peace, abundance and healing into the world.”

We live our lives one thought at a time. Let each of those thoughts really count for something wonderful.

Be prepared to change your thinking and change your life. Please join us each Sunday at 5:30 PM in our Social Hall at First Christian Church, North Hollywood, CA for our Contemporary Celebration and Praise service. Come as you are and enjoy an hour of great music from our wonderful band and singers, inspiring messages and good fellowship. Those things in life that you have been seeking have also been seeking you. Now is a good time to receive them. We will lift one another to live exciting, abundant new lives of possibility and purpose.

Also, join me on Wednesday evenings from 7 to 8 PM for an hour of guided and silent meditation, reflection, affirmation and prayer. As always, we will share communion together. Everyone is welcome. We are an open and affirming congregation.

The Season, launched at the United Nations in 1998, marks the annual 64 calendar days between the memorial anniversary of the assassination of Mohandas K. Gandhi on January 30 and that of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. on April 4. The Season teaches that every person can move the world forward in the direction of peace through daily nonviolent choices, words and actions.

Re-printed from 64days.org

WEEK 2 (8-14)
Personal centeredness gives us the inner peace and calm to respond to situations with nonviolent means. Building that inner center is the first act of peace making.

Day 8 – HEALING (Feb. 6)

Writer, poet, activist, and professor Maya Angelou turned a traumatic childhood experience into a catalyst for creativity and achievement. Today, choose a painful incident in your that and find the “gift” it has given you. Consciously share this gift with others today.

Day 9 –DREAMING (Feb. 7)

Martin Luther King, Jr. had a great dream. What is your dream for peace? Write it down. What is one thing you can do to honor your dreams? Do it today.

Day 10 – FAITH (Feb. 8)

When Cesar Chavez was organizing farm workers, he challenged them to say, “Si, se puede” (yes, it is possible) when they didn’t know how they would overcome obstacles. Today say, “yes, it is possible,” even if you don’t know how your goal will be realized. Have faith, and say “it is possible” until you find, or are shown, a way.

Day 11 – CONTEMPLATION (Feb. 9)

For at least three minutes, relax, breathe, and let your mind be fed by “whatsoever is good and beautiful and just.” Sacred scripture states, “as a man thinketh in his heart, so is he.”

Day 12 – GROUNDEDNESS (Feb. 10)

Gandhi said, “To forget how to dig the earth and tend the soil is to forget ourselves.” And Black Elk said, “Some little root of the sacred tree still lives. Nourish it, that it may leaf and bloom and fill with singing birds.” Today place a seed in the earth, plant a tree or nurture an open space.

Day 13 – CREATIVITY (Feb. 11)

The worst thing you can do to a human soul is to suppress its natural desire to create. Identify at least five ways in which you express your creativity everyday. Today, allow something unpredictable and joyous to express through you.

Day 14 – HUMILITY (Feb. 12)

Making mistakes is a part of learning and growing, simply an “error in approach.” Today, freely acknowledge at least one mistake you made today, and reflect for a couple of minutes on what you have learned.